If you’ve ever found yourself wondering what purpose drones serve, wonder no more. On Sunday, at the Dolce and Gabbana show during Milan’s Fashion Week, the brand’s quintessential millennial “It girl” models were replaced instead by tiny flying drones whizzing down the runway single-file and carrying handbags from the fall 2018 collection.
Widely recognized for its consistently avant-garde approach to luxury fashion design, the storied house—helmed by designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana—has, for the past few seasons, consistently produced over-the-top runway shows, complete with famous faces (both on the catwalk and beside it) and musical performances by Top 40 hitmakers. So it was a surprise, then, that—at this year’s show—the kingpins of the D&G empire chose a far more minimalistic approach.
And it was this very abrupt pivot in aesthetic that ultimately delivered the biggest impact.
Upon arrival, the 600-or-so attendees were instructed to turn off the Wi-Fi on their devices, including any personal hotspots (not a small ask, given the standard crowds of editors, bloggers, celebs, and influencers who attend and are keen to Insta-story and Snap from the event). When the show finally began, the bags flew down the runway, each carried by a drone, to the sound of Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s new hit “All of the Stars” from the Black Panther album.
Ultimately, the show checked all the boxes for a noteworthy, memorable performance. But while the use of drones was (probably) a statement-making one-off, the question remains: Could we be seeing more of them in fashion’s future? All in all, the fusion of the tech and fashion industries in a myriad of hybrids seems inevitable, so only time will tell if we’ll be seeing more purse-carrying bots in the near future. (In the meantime, if we could get a drone for our shopping bags, that would really be great.)
